The present invention relates to a support guide that may be fitted to the front of a wheelchair and which is especially designed for the practice of the sport of football by disabled people in wheelchairs.
The support guide is usable by people with physical disabilities involving the complete or partial immobility of their legs who have to use a wheelchair to move around. The support guide makes it possible for them to play football as it is used as a means of retaining and moving the ball.
As is well known, the practice by the disabled of several sports is becoming more widespread, and in sports in which the use of a wheelchair has already attained a very high level such as basketball, the players"" hands are the essential elements used in play.
This is not the case for football which requires the use of feet to be played due to the specific nature of the disability of the players in question.
In an attempt to increase the playing of football by the disabled, Applicant is the holder of Spanish Patent of Invention under Application No. P 9802702, which consists of an apparatus for the practice of football in a wheelchair. The apparatus takes the form of a body that reproduces, with a certain degree of faithfulness, the configuration and dimensions of a human foot, up to the top of the same, from the center of the top of which a short arm emerges that is finished in a holder noticeably parallel to the longitudinal axis of the body, in such a way that a disabled individual in a wheelchair is able to use the apparatus with either hand, to receive, control and drive the ball.
In Application No. P 9802702, it was foreseen that under certain circumstances, most especially when advancing on a field, a player would push a ball along using the front of a wheelchair. Nevertheless, the structural characteristics of conventional wheelchairs are not at all ideal for doing this.
The support guide of the present invention has been especially designed to resolve the problem explained in the previous paragraph in such a way that when it is duly attached to the front of a conventional wheelchair, by means of bolts for example, it offers optimum performance in terms of ball control as it directs a ball over a field by means of moving the chair itself forward.
To this end and more specifically, the support guide of the present invention is composed of a frame of a hard, light and strong material, including two side bars which are precisely the parts of the same that have the purpose of fitting and attaching to the sides of the front of a wheelchair, while between the side bars, which in practice are set at the same angle as the front of the wheelchair, specifically at a lower level, there is a transverse rod which is the guide itself, and which has a special configuration that allows it to fulfill the function for which it is provided in a satisfactory manner.
Specifically, this rod has two side projections which point backwards and which at their rearmost end have orthogonal elbows angled inwards and closing one over the other by means of a central semi-ring which is open at the bottom and located along an imaginary plane that is angled forward and downward in such a way that the semi-ring is suitable in form and position to partially adapt to a ball and move it over a field of play when the wheelchair is moved.
According to another characteristic of the invention, this bar is fitted with a rubber tube cover and is threaded to ensure good fixing of the cover.
It only remains to be said that the supports included in the invention of Application No. P 9802702 for holding the apparatus to which that patent application refers will now be located on the side bars of the support guide, configuring a single unit together with the latter.